Sligh

General Plan#

The matchup against Sligh is one of the trickiest, especially in Game 1. The difficulty depends heavily on the opening hand and on whether you’re playing blind or already know what you’re sitting across from.

The main problem is that Hermit Druid isn’t a reliable plan in this matchup. Sligh plays a high number of cards that, on top of contributing to the clock, also function as removal: Lightning Bolt, Mogg Fanatic, Incinerate, and in general almost every burn spell can answer Hermit Druid effectively. This makes it very risky to base the game on a line that requires you to untap with it or protect it across multiple turns.

On top of that, there’s a second important issue: your manabase deals you a lot of damage. Without access to “painless” sources like Reflecting Pool or Treva’s Ruin, you’re often forced to lean on painlands and City of Brass. Against Sligh every life point matters, and just developing mana can push you dangerously close to the opponent’s burn range.

For these reasons, the main plan should almost always be Survival of the Fittest.

Game 1#

You want to build the game around Survival, looking for a line that’s as resilient as possible against the opponent’s removal.

Hermit Druid can still have a role, but more often as a tempo card than as a real combo plan. For example, against an aggressive start with Jackal Pup, you can use Hermit Druid as a blocker or as a card that forces a removal spell. If you know the opponent will have to spend a burn spell on it anyway, you can turn it into a small defensive resource, buying time and temporarily reducing pressure on the board.

The ideal Survival plan is to build a line that cast Volrath’s Shapeshifter instead of relying on lines with Unearth. If you can put a creature like Palinchron on top of the graveyard, Shapeshifter will enter as a much bigger body and will be much harder to remove with a single burn spell. This is very important because against Sligh you never want your Shapeshifter to be vulnerable for free. If it enters as a 0/1, or if it passes through a window where it’s a X/1, any removal from the opponent becomes lethal.

Another important line involves Phyrexian Devourer. By discarding Devourer and having Shapeshifter copy it, you can often load up some counters without immediately reaching the threshold that triggers the sacrifice . Even just 3 or 4 counters can be relevant for moving out of certain burn-spell range or for forcing the opponent to have multiple interactions at the same time.

Even better if you have access to Psychatog or Battlefield Scrounger, since these cards let you manipulate the graveyard or power/toughness at instant speed, working around damage the opponent can deal in response to a Survival activation or a discard.

The Role of Survival#

Survival is the most important card in the matchup because it lets you turn every creature in hand into a useful piece: virtual protection, a bigger body, recursion, or a kill line.

The key thing is not to look for the most elegant line, but the safest one. Against Sligh you often don’t have the luxury of building a slow combo over multiple turns: your life total drops quickly, and your own manabase contributes to the opponent’s clock.

The question to ask is:

“Does this line lose to a single burn spell?”

If the answer is yes, you probably need to find a different line with more margin.

Watch Out for Unearth#

Unearth is a very versatile card in the matchup, but it has to be used carefully.

On one hand, it can be excellent in defensive situations. For example, you can block with a wall, let the opponent spend a removal on it, and then bring it back with Unearth to recreate a blocker and buy time. In this sense, Unearth can become a form of positive attrition: the opponent spends burn, you rebuild the board.

On the other hand, Unearth can create dangerous windows in combo lines. If you’re building a sequence with Karmic Guide, Palinchron, or other creatures with triggers on the stack, you have to remember that at certain moments Volrath’s Shapeshifter can revert to being a 0/1. In those windows, Sligh can easily punish you with any burn spell.

So Unearth shouldn’t be treated simply as a shortcut to the combo. It’s a powerful card, but against Sligh every step of the line has to be evaluated based on the vulnerability windows it opens.

Post-Sideboard#

In Game 2 and Game 3 the plan is more straightfoward, the general idea is to cut the less reliable cards and increase the density of cards that help you survive or assemble Survival more quickly.

You can usually consider cutting:

• a number of Hermit Druid, because the Hermit plan is fragile against their amount of removal;
• some discard spells, Duress and Cabal Therapy, especially if the matchup is being played more on the board and on tempo than on the hand;
• possibly Krosan Reclamation, since the main plan isn’t full-mill with Hermit Druid.

The cards to bring in depend on the configuration, but they can include:

• an additional Enlightened Tutor, to increase access to Survival or other key cards;
• removal like Swords to Plowshares;
• sweepers like Pyroclasm;
• Eladamri’s Vineyard, if it’s in the sideboard.

Eladamri’s Vineyard is particularly interesting because it gives you green mana that doesn’t deal damage. That’s very relevant against Sligh: it lets you use Survival multiple times without continuing to pay life with painlands or City of Brass. Paired with Survival, Vineyard can win you the game in two or three turns, dramatically accelerating your engine.

Key Creatures#

The most important defensive creatures are the Wall of Roots.

Walls have two fundamental functions:

• they block the opponent’s aggressive creatures effectively, thanks to the 0/5 body;
• they produce mana without dealing you damage.

This combination is exactly what you want in the matchup: slow down the clock while developing your plan without losing additional life.

Price of Progress#

Post-sideboard you have to respect Price of Progress a lot.

It’s very easy to die to two Price of Progress, or to a single lethal Price for 8 or 10 damage at a moment when you think you’re relatively safe. For this reason, you shouldn’t play unnecessary lands just because you have them in hand.

The practical rule is:

If you don’t need that land and you can’t use the mana right away in a meaningful way, it’s probably better not to play it.

Managing the number of nonbasics on the battlefield is a fundamental part of the matchup. Against Sligh you’re not just playing against the board and burn spells: you’re also playing against the sudden range of Price of Progress.